As a sociatrist, I’m passionate about people in business developing greater ability to stand in each others’ shoes. It’s one of the cornerstones of the work we do at Quantum Shift and is central to nurturing greater health in organisations.

This is often given the name “empathy”. I bristle a little, however, when I hear someone say, “I can have empathy for them, but…..” What’s that expression? Everything before the “but” is bulls**t.

A lot of great things have been written about how to cultivate customer engagement. But I think the why of customer engagement is lacking the same attention, as in, why customer engagement is important—beyond metrics, and even beyond the bottom line. That’s why I’d like to make the business case for empathy.

Empathy can be defined as putting yourself in another person’s shoes. It’s a way of creating relationships by seeing the world through somebody else’s eyes. Empathy in the business world is gaining traction as a way to discuss interoffice relationships and leadership skills. But the conversation hasn’t shifted to the customer-business relationship, perhaps with the exception of customer journey mapping (at least, the customer journey maps that really take into consideration the motivations and barriers customers face). I’d like to argue that, for customer engagement to succeed, it has to begin with empathy.

Empathy has overtaken more traditional business skills to become the most important requirement for leadership success, according to Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch.

Speaking at the EQ Summit in London – a day-long exploration of the importance of emotional intelligence in business – Darroch said: “A lot of the old skills of leadership aren’t fit for the future. The idea that I can sit in the corner office and call the shots is long gone.

Empathy is now the single most important skill when you get to the top of an organisation. It means you can frame opportunity and challenge in the right way.

A 16-month longitudinal study at a long-term health care facility with 185 employees, 108 patients, and 42 of the patients' family members was conducted to test how the employees treated the patients and families versus their colleagues.

The researchers found that there was lower absenteeism and employee burnout, as well as higher levels of employee engagement with their work with greater teamwork and employee satisfaction. In addition, the culture of compassion spread to patients and their families. Then, to see if the same positive results would be found in industries such as real estate, finance, and public utilities, they performed a second study involving 3,201 employees in seven different industries.

Again, a greater culture of compassion in the workplace led to greater work satisfaction, commitment, and accountability.

...What steps can we take to develop or increase a compassionate workplace?

1. Try a morning ritual where you literally set a positive tone for your day....

2. Look for what you have in common with others today. ...

3. Practice intentional, but random, acts of kindness...

4. Start a gratitude journal where each day you write three new things you are grateful for at work....

Connecting with customers enables growth in any industry. But where many brands go wrong is in thinking that social media “likes” equal connection. It’s not about “likes” – it’s about understanding. Only through understanding can companies create meaningful connections with their customers, or in the healthcare industry, their patients.

So what does that look like? In a word: Empathy.

Empathy in Action...

Why Empathy Matters...

Empathy creates understandingFighting confusion and misinformation within healthcare can be difficult. Through empathy, both providers and patients can find understanding, allowing for more trust and clarity on both sides of the healthcare coin....

Increased sales and a strong bottom line usually are precursors of boardroom discussions about accountability. That dialogue is broadening, however, as the complexities of today’s marketplace have led to a less black-and-white conversation — a more humanized version of accountability.

Your living, breathing, growing organization needs a heart. You need to “psychologically identify with, or vicariously experience the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” That is the dictionary definition of empathy, and for businesses and brands it means having a heightened consideration for the wants, needs and passions of their consumers.

Empathy is a key competency in everything from business leadership to parenting.

It moves us from the simple identification and knowledge of needs to a depth of understanding, experience with, and belief in those needs, wants, and desires. Empathy can help businesses align authentically with what their consumers care about.

However, as we seek to develop successful solutions and innovations for brands to meet the needs of consumers and shoppers, empathy can be a big challenge

Dev Patnaik, CEO of Jump Associates and strong proponent of empathy in business, said a while back that “the problem with business today isn’t a lack of innovation; it’s a lack of empathy.”

While one might think that marketing — an industry based on open communication — would’ve figured it out by now, the truth is that many marketers today still undervalue, or at least misunderstand, empathy.

One of the more surprising items on the British political agenda this year was empathy.

This is largely thanks to Labour leader Ed Miliband, who has cited empathy as one of his core political values and has even recruited the help of empathy expert Professor Simon Baron Cohen to develop his “politics of empathy”.

It is too early to know whether Mr. Miliband’s initiative will bear fruit in the political domain. But it isn’t too early for the HR community to take note and consider the case for pushing empathy up its own agenda.

the Army leader to build high-performing and cohesive organizations able to effectively project and support landpower. It also creates positive organizational climates, allowing for individual and team learning, and empathy for all team members, Soldiers, civilians, and their families.

2-15. Three major factors determine a leader’s character: values, empathy, and the Warrior Ethos. Some characteristics are present at the beginning of the leader’s career, while others develop over time through additional education, training, and experience.

4-4. Character is essential to successful leadership. It determines who people are and how they act. It helps determine right from wrong and choose what is right. The factors, internal and central to a leader, which make up the leader’s core are—

Army Values.

Empathy.

Warrior Ethos.

EMPATHY

4-42. Army leaders show a propensity to share experiences with the members of their organization. When planning and deciding, try to envision the impact on Soldiers and other subordinates. The ability to see something from another person’s point of view, to identify with and enter into another person’s feelings and emotions, enables the Army leader to better care for civilians, Soldiers, and their families.

4-43. Competent and empathetic leaders take care of Soldiers by giving them the training, equipment, and all the support they need to keep them alive in combat and accomplish the mission. During wartime and difficult operations, empathetic Army leaders share the hardships with their people to gauge if their plans and decisions are realistic. Competent and empathetic leaders also recognize the need to provide Soldiers and civilians with reasonable comforts and rest periods to maintain good morale and mission effectiveness. When a unit or organization suffers injuries or death, empathetic Army leaders can help ease the trauma and suffering in the organization to restore full readiness as quickly as possible.

4-44. Modern Army leaders recognize that empathy also includes nourishing a close relationship between the Army and Army families. To build a strong and ready force, Army leaders at all levels promote self sufficient and healthy families. Empathy for families includes allowing Soldiers recovery time from difficult missions, protecting leave periods, permitting critical appointments, as well as supporting events that allow information exchange and family teambuilding.

4-45. The requirement for leader empathy extends beyond civilians, Soldiers, and their families. Within the larger operational environment, leader empathy may be helpful when dealing with local populations and prisoners of war. Providing the local population within an area of operations with the necessities of life often turns an initially hostile disposition into one of cooperation.

B-35. To improve leader counseling skills, follow these general guidelines:

The article discusses empathy and why it is an important leadership characteristic that builds relationships of trust between superiors and subordinates, in the military and elsewhere. Relevant concepts in personal and professional development from writers such as Robert Goffee and Gareth R. Mitchell, Matt Broaddus, and Steven Covey are discussed.

A True Leader Skillhttp://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/repository/dcl_GarnerArticle.pdfTo lead successfully, a person must demonstrate two active, essential, interrelated traits: expertise and empathy. In my experience, both of these traits can be deliberately and systematically cultivated; this personal development is the first important building block of leadership. —William G. Pagonis, Leadership in a Combat Zone

IN HIS CLASSIC 1991 Harvard Business Review article, “Leadership in a Combat Zone,” Lieutenant General Gus Pagonis outlines a path to effective leadership by focusing on the development of two fundamental leadership traits: expertise and empathy. There is little disagreement among military professionals that leaders must be proficient at systems management. But what about empathy? How did empathy, a word that conjures preconceptions of excessive sensitivity and interpersonal emotional connectivity, become a building block of leadership?

Related to Servant Leadership is the subject of Empathy - the capacity to recognise emotions that are being experienced by others. This month, I would like to share an article by LTC (Ret) Harry C. Garner titled, “Empathy – A True Leader Skill”. In the article, LTC (Ret) Garner shared that leaders who harness the power of real empathy will foster better communications, tighter cohesion, stronger discipline, and greater morale in their units.

Back in the 1950’s Carl Rogers identified three characteristics that psychotherapists should possess: warmth, genuineness, and empathy. Considerable research supported Rogers’ idea.

Regardless of the therapeutic orientation of the therapist, these three variables facilitated clients making positive changes. Building a positive relationship with the client has been viewed as an important part of effective psychotherapy. Over time, this concept has been included in, and adapted for, a variety of therapeutic approaches....

How can leaders be more effective?

By listening to staff. When a leader seeks input from various levels within an organization, this helps staff feel valued.

By reflecting back to staff what has been said.

By using positive communication whenever possible. By acknowledging individual and group accomplishments, a leader builds a “positive balance” in the “emotional bank account” of staff, thus helping everyone feel more invested in the organization.

That system is far more intuitive, far more human in its essence, than any new trick or analytics tool. We’re talking about empathy—basic understanding and responsiveness to consumer need—which all competitive companies of the future will have to harness to sustain and drive up their market value.

The empathy we’re advocating is a systematic, scalable approach. It’s not about retrofitting a so-called friendlier face on an old system or sticking suggestion boxes, virtual and otherwise, around your enterprise. It’s not just about training customer service representatives. It’s what we call thinking round instead of linear—not focusing so much on production lines and bottom lines as focusing every aspect of your products, services and systems on the consumer. The ones who drive the top line.

"Indi Young is an expert consultant in user experience, offering her services in empathy research, strategy, and redesign to organizations around the world. She has helped with digital applications, services, process design, and content strategy.

Indi is author of, Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work. (Put in the promotion code "CULTURE" for a book discount on the Rosenfeld publisher website)

"Conventional product development focuses on the solution. Empathy is a mindset that focuses on people, helping you to understand their thinking patterns and perspectives."

From the book forward."Indi Young's book is a practical manual for practicing empathy, which is a skill, not an innate talent. Empathy is a mindset that can be learned and improved with practice. There are best practices, techniques, and tools that help you get your own ego out of the picture and focus on what things are like from another person's perspective.

It is not easy to do really well, but it is worth doing really well! And Indi's book shows you how to do it.Practical Empathy offers advice on how to practice an empathetic mindset toward other people involved in the conception, design, or implementation of a product."

As a business leader, here are some ways to harness empathy and make it your superpower, too:

1. Use empathy to create your vision.Empathy is commonly explained by the phrase "walk a mile in someone else's shoes." But it's more than just that. It's walking side by side with someone, listening with intent, and using the knowledge gained to create your vision.

2. Use empathy to become mission-driven....3. Use empathy to inspire loyalty....4. Use empathy as a your default communication tool....

The city will not give a permit so I set up without one under the 1st amendment free speech and expression. The city didn't give me any trouble so far. We'll see what happens. I've offered to have a empathic dialog about this issue with the city officials but they say they are too busy. If they try to give me a citation I will not accept it, I'll only support an empathic dialog. Not accepting a citation could mean 72 hours of jail time for me.

I talked to 50 people or more. Handed out a couple hundred flyers, started wearing the empathy t-shirt that David Hazen made.

We now need to start expanding the empathic space and make it more engaging and inviting. I can only carry the tent, so we need more people involved to bring chairs, etc. to fill in the space.

I talked with some street musicians about bring in music.

Some students said they were interested in learning empathic listening and offering it to the homeless in the area.

We are talking with various people to host empathic dialogs between different groups in the area to address various tensions.

We need to keep designing and iterating and creating an empathic space and movement.

Make a list of empathy benefits with your agents and discussYou may already have something like this as a part of your training or you may need to create. Review these benefits during coaching with your experienced and new agents to make sure they are in agreement:

Prevents many escalations and complaints

Negative social media blasts avoided

Customer easier to communicate with

Positives back from customers

Retains customers which means continued revenue for the company, center and employee opportunities

Innovation requires change, which is hard for human beings even when it’s good. Change brings fear, loss, frustration, and even rewiring of our brains

Empathy helps us move through all of this, as well as fuels our willingness and desire to celebrate success together.

True inclusion requires being able to hear what others contribute, and that they feel safe and able to communicate disparate views. Inclusion starts with valuing rather than judging each human being. Think about the groups in which you feel safe to be yourself and say what comes to mind. The currency of empathy is flowing there.

Our findings suggest that decades’ of prior research failed to reveal how empathy can turn into a liability for an executive—particularly when it’s not accompanied by other components of EQ. Empathy must be accompanied with other social-behavioral skills in order to be an asset.

Too much empathy can be a liability for an executive— particularly if it’s not balanced out by other components of emotional intelligence. A Korn Ferry study of 2,000 C-level executives found that those who overemphasize empathy are among the least engaged leaders and at high risk of derailing.

Our findings suggest that decades’ of prior research failed to reveal how empathy can turn into a liability for an executive—particularly when it’s not accompanied by other components of EQ. Empathy must be accompanied with other social-behavioral skills in order to be an asset.

Too much empathy can be a liability for an executive— particularly if it’s not balanced out by other components of emotional intelligence. A Korn Ferry study of 2,000 C-level executives found that those who overemphasize empathy are among the least engaged leaders and at high risk of derailing.

Adding together this accumulation of evidence and insights from psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, there is little doubt that we are social creatures defined by our capacity to empathize. Accompanying our self-seeking Hobbesian side is our Vulcan other half. We are both serpents and doves.

But there may be a niggling worry at the back of your mind, which is whether it really is possible to become more empathic and expand your ability to look through other people’s eyes. Might your empathic capabilities be fundamentally limited by the kind of brain you happened to be born with? Or what if you didn’t receive enough nurturing care as an infant to develop deep empathic sensitivity?

Whether you’re running a company or feeding, clothing, and equipping an army, the bedrock principles of leadership don’t change: Know your stuff and listen hard, and your troops will fight like lions for you.

Expertise and Empathy

...Owning the facts is a prerequisite to leadership. But there are millions of technocrats out there with lots of facts in their quivers and little leadership potential. In many cases, what they are missing is empathy. No one is a leader who can’t put himself or herself in the other person’s shoes. Empathy and expertise command respect.

...I could perpetuate the cycle or I could act in the spirit of empathy, based on my vivid recollection of what it felt like to get knocked around.

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Empathy was an absolutely vital quality in the context of the Gulf War. We asked ourselves constantly: What do the other people on our team need? Why do they think they need it, and how can we give it to them?

Stress makes us more likely to forget how the other guy feels, which is not good for the modern IT department.

In other words, have a little empathy for your team.Make them happy when you need them happy the most, and they'll put their best foot forward when you need them cooperating the most. What do you think? Is empathy an important part of your management tool belt? How do you de-stress your IT team? Do you think your team could use a little more empathy for the strangers inside and outside of your company?

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